LSU Poised To Score Big As NCAA Outdoor Championships Return

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

The NCAA Division 1 Outdoor Track and Field Championships will make their much-anticipated return this week at the newly renovated Hayward Field on the campus of the University of Oregon in Eugene, Ore. 

The NCAA men's meet marks 100 years since its first incarnation in 1921 and it is coming back from the cancellation of 2020 — the only year besides 1924 that the meet did not happen in the past century. 

The significance of this week's meet is compounded by the looming U.S. Olympic Team Trials that will follow from June 18-27. For many of the top American athletes in the meet, a single trip to Eugene will provide the proving ground for years of dedicated training with incredibly high stakes. 

The meet also will see unusual depth and veteran talent due to the NCAA's decision last year to allow schools to extend eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That means that in many cases the seniors who were set to graduate in 2020 have put their lives on hold to stay in the sport for another NCAA opportunity, with an Olympic Trials on top of it. 

Oregon head coach Robert Johnson said the hold-over situation had produced "super-teams."

"You have some super-teams there that have a lot of kids coming back for sixth years, or COVID year, that the NCAA granted and you'll probably see that for another year or two before we get back to that four-to-five year rotation," Johnson said. "I think there are some teams that have kids that are going to make a difference in the final team score, us being one of them, hopefully."

The men's events will take place on Wednesday and Friday, with the decathlon schedule spread across Wednesday and Thursday. The women's events will be held Thursday and Saturday, with the heptathlon going Friday and Saturday. 

Here are 10 Storylines to follow in the men's meet. 

1. The passing of John McDonnell. The sport lost a true icon Monday with the passing of former Arkansas coach John McDonnell, whose Razorback teams steamrolled the late 1980s and 1990s with national championships coming at an unprecedented rate. McDonnell's teams won 40 national championships across cross country, indoor track and field and outdoor track and field. 

The John McDonnell Program of the Year, which goes to the school that has the best combined cross country/indoor/outdoor campaign, will be decided this week. 

And going into the outdoor championships, you guessed it, Arkansas is at the top of the board with 11.5 points for its fourth-place finish in the cross country championships and seventh-place tie in the indoor championships. (The sum of the places in all three championships produces the winner). 

The Arkansas men are not expected to win a trophy this week, but the Razorbacks are in the hunt for a third John McDonnell Program of the Year Award and are ahead of challengers from Iowa State, Ole Miss and BYU. 

2. JuVaughn Harrison, Terrance Laird and LSU. Led by a pair of Olympic-caliber talents, the LSU men have become the clear front-runners to win the school's first team championship since 2002 and fifth overall. 

Harrison is a one-of-a-kind jumper who has made a habit out of winning the high jump/long jump double, producing the best combined all-time marks in both events in the world. He did it at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in 2019 and he did it again in March at the NCAA Indoor Championships. 

Harrison is currently ranked third in the world in the high jump with a clearance at 7-8.75 (2.36m) at the SEC Championships on May 14. His NCAA Indoor winning long jump of 27-8.75 (8.45m) is No. 2 in the world this year. 

Laird, who is entered in both the 100 and 200 in addition to relay duty, ran the fastest wind-legal 200 in the world this year when he went 19.81 at the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays. Laird has Oregon freshman Micah Williams, the NCAA Indoor 60-meter champion, to contend with in the 100. But the 200 figures to be his big moment. 

LSU isn't done with those two. The Tigers' Noah Williams is ranked second in the world in the 400 meters at 44.30, trailing only Michael Norman. 

Damion Thomas is tied for fifth in the world in the 110-meter hurdles and Sean Burrell is 11th in the world in the 400-meter hurdles. 

LSU's previous men's track titles came in 1933, 1989, 1990 and 2002. 

3. Yared Nuguse Looking To Retain 1,500m Title. Notre Dame's Yared Nuguse is one of the few returning champions from 2019 and though he is favored, repeating in the 1,500 meters is not easy. 

NCAA 1,500-meter finals often devolve into cartoonish affairs where the pace can slow to a crawl early on so that the kickers can plunge into a sprint over the final 600 meters. 

That might not happen this year, because some runners who would like to run at the Trials still need the qualifying standard and won't get there by gettting caught up in tactical races. 

Nuguse broke the collegiate record when he ran 3:34.68 in the May 13 prelims of the ACC Championships. 

Nuguse has the wheels to win the event again. In 2019, he won a photo finish with Justine Kiprotich of Michigan State in 3:41.39. 

This time, he faces dangerous Alabama freshman Eliud Kipsang and Oregon sophomore Cole Hocker, neither of whom were there in 2019. 

4. Mississippi State Throwers Seek Another Javelin Sweep. Two years after Anderson Peters led a 1-2-3 finish for the Bulldogs in the javelin with a majestic throw of 284 feet, 2 inches (86.62m), the team is back looking for 24 points out the event. 

Only Tyriq Horsford, third in 2019, is back in the new trio of throwers Mississippi State has sent to Eugene. Freshman DJ Jonsson is the current NCAA leader with with 258-1 (78.66m) and fellow Icelandic standout Sindri Gudmundsson is second with 255-2 (77.77m).

Gudmundsson has been an All-American three times competing for Utah State, finishing third, fourth and sixth in his previous championship appearances. The Bulldogs have produced three of the past four champions, with Curtis Thompson in 2016 and Peters in 2018 and 2019.

Mississippi State became the first program since Oregon in 1964 to sweep the top three spots in the javelin, and just the 11th program in any event to achieve the feat in Division 1 championship history.

5. Karel Tilga Going After The Collegiate Decathlon Record. Another Estonian in a Georgia uniform is the man to watch in the decathlon. 

Two years ago, Johannes Erm won the decathlon for Georgia with 8,352 points in the hot, sticky conditions at Austin, Texas. In 2014, Estonian Maicel Uibo won the NCAA decathlon with 8,182 points and repeated in 2015 with 8,356 points. 

Now, it's all about Tilga, who won the NCAA Indoor heptathlon with 6,264 points in March and he is currently No. 3 in the world with his best decathlon total to date, 8,484 points. 

If Tilga can improve this week, then the 2017 collegiate record of Texas A&M's Lindon Victor (8,539) and the 2010 NCAA championships record of Oregon's Ashton Eaton (8,457) are both within reach. 

Tilga's Georgia training partner, American decathlon prospect Kyle Garland, is skipping th NCAA Championships so he can be ready to give maximum effort at the U.S. Trials the following week. 

6.  Conner Mantz In The 10,000m. BYU's Conner Mantz has already established himself as one of the best distance runners to come through Ed Eyestone's storied program, and his cross country victory on the brutal hills of Oklahoma State's course in March stands on its own. 

But Mantz has a chance to collect the outdoor 10,000 as well and few would doubt he has what it takes to do it. In 2019, Mantz finished fourth in the NCAA final behind two of his teammates, winner Clayton Young and third-place finisher Connor McMillan. (All three were Utah high school products). 

Mantz was just over three seconds out of the title in the 2019 race. 

He has that experience to build upon as he prepares for the Wednesday night final in Eugene, with a rematch looming against cross country runner-up Adrian Wildschutt of Florida State and third-place finisher Wesley Kiptoo of Iowa State, who also won the indoor 5,000 championship in March. 

7. Reigning TJ champ Chengetayi Mapaya Flying Under Radar. Defending champions are seldom easy to knock off. 

TCU's Chengetayi Mapaya won the 2019 NCAA Outdoor triple jump in Austin with a personal-best mark of 56-2.50 (17.11m). That big jump came in the sixth round and it was a huge moment. 

In the past two years, Mapaya has not replicated it. But he has come close. He enters the week with the second-best jump of the season (55-9.75), behind Texas' O'Brien Wasome (55-11.75), but is third on some form charts. 

Oregon freshman Emmanuel Ihemeje won the NCAA Indoor title with 56-7.50 (17.26m) and his points this week are important for a Ducks team that hopes to hang with LSU. 

8. Turner Washington Throwing For Two. Arizona State standout Turner Washington has been a revelation in 2021 ever since his breakout indoor season when he threw a collegiate record 71-8.25 (21.85m) in the shot put. He hasn't thrown over 70 feet since March, but remains a favorite to beat 2019 Outdoor champion Tripp Piperi of Texas. 

Before he became a world-class shot-putter, Washington was a standout in the discus and he remains sharp in that event, too. He has been consistently over 210 feet this spring — and that's five feet farther than the winning distance in 2019.

Filip Mihaljevic of Virginia was the last male athlete to win both the shot put and discus championships in the same year when he achieved the double in 2017 at Hayward Field.

9. NC A&T Looks To Make History in 4x400. No HBCU has ever won the men's 4x400 relay, but even more than that, the group at North Carolina A&T has its sights set on a potential NCAA record after running 2:59.21 at the NCAA East Prelims with a line up of Daniel Stokes, Randolph Ross, Akeem Sirleaf and Trevor Stewart. This group could go after the USC collegiate record of 2:59.00 from the 2018 NCAA Championships. 

Stewart, who split 43.70 on that race at East prelims, was a freshman on the N.C. A&T that competed and got 16th in 2018. 

By 2021, the HBCU storyline has been somewhat played out. N.C. A&T is more than that, and has proven to be a real player at the Division 1 level in both men's and women's sprints, hurdles and relays. 

But a victory at nationals, along with a potential record, would be a huge achievement. 

The Aggies are also a threat to win the 4x100. 

10. Cole Hocker and Cooper Teare. From the moment they stepped onto the track in January together at Arkansas and ran the bulk of Oregon's world-best Distance Medley Relay, Hocker and Teare have been mostly untouchable. 

Hocker won the NCAA Indoor titles in the Mile and 3,000. Teare beat Hocker when he broke the collegiate record in the mile (3:50.39) and has finished second to him on several occasions since then. 

The big moment for Oregon could come in the 5,000 meters, where a 1-2 finish by Hocker and Teare — in any order — would be a delight for Ducks fans. 

Hocker, in particular, seemed unbeatable in April when Hayward Field opened for its first meets. His kick is strong enough to overpower everyone, including his teammate.

Hocker is the only athlete entered in the 1,500 and 5,000, and if he were to achieve the double, he would become the first men's competitor in Division 1 history to produce the sweep. Only Sheila Reid of Villanova has achieved the feat among female athletes at the 2011 final.